JPiC Posting Policy

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Please adhere to the following guidelines* so that we may keep the forums running smoothly, with a minimal amount of drama. Should any questions or issues arise regarding our posting policies, please feel free to Contact the JPiC Administrator or any Member of the JPiC Moderating Team. We will be happy to clarify and/or assist.

General Rules of Member Conduct

Each member is allowed one JPiC Forum account. Registering multiple accounts is not allowed, and may be subject to account(s) deletion.

JPiC Forum is an English-as-first-language forum. If you are going to start a non-English thread on these forums, please also add an English translation of your post.

JPiC Forum takes copyright very seriously, so we insist that anything you post in the forums be either your own work or clearly marked as otherwise, citing the author whenever possible. See the JPiC Copyright Policy below.

While debating and discussion is fine (in their appropriate forums of course), we will not tolerate rudeness. Neither insulting, racist, homophobic, ageist posts, nor posts of personal attacks or purposeless hate are allowed here at JPiC Forum.

Flaming is the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board on the Internet. No FLAMING of other members. Harrassment of fellow board members will not be tolerated and may be subject to immediate banning. The JPiC Moderating Team reserves the right to remove offensive posts without notice.

As a forum for writers, we all love positive comments on our works. JPiC Forum has a forum specifically for the more "in-depth" critique and suggestions: The Critique Saloon. So please confine your comments to "general" commentary, unless the author of a posted piece SPECIFICALLY REQUESTS your in-depth critique.

Spamming and trolling is not allowed. This includes using the JPiC Forum email and private message system to spam other members. **NOTE** A general rule of thumb is to post only one written work per started thread, otherwise your post may be considered SPAM and deleted as such.

Posting your unsolicited personal website links in your posts & threads, the JPiC Shoutbox and/or other areas may be considered SPAM and are subject to being deleted. If you have a personal website you seek to promote - You may place the link in your Forum Signature* or Edit Your Details to include your link. Additional SPAM policies is listed below in the External Links section.

Regarding Forum Etiquette

JPiC Forum does not unnecessarily censor, but please use common courtesy along with common sense when interacting with your fellow forum members. (AKA: Treat people the way you would want them to treat you.)

Select the most appropriate forum for your post, and please post in only one forum. Cross-posting wastes our limited resources and will result in all duplicates being deleted. Use the Quick Menu to view a quicklist of available forums.

Please wait a reasonable amount of time before bumping posts. The JPiC Moderating Team will bump your threads when necessary. Remember the golden rule of writing message boards: You comment and show love for a writers work, so shall you be blessed!

If you have a large inventory of poems you've written we'd love to see them all, however, please not all at the same time. Give the other poets room to post their material, too. **NOTE** At JPiC Forum the rule of thumb is to post only one written work per started thread.

We strongly suggest posting no more than two or three poems per day, then sit back and wait for comments on those. Spamming the board with your writing is frowned upon and will likely result in your post(s) being removed without notice.

JPiC Forum does have a section for "Adult-oriented/Mature-themed" jokes as well as the more mature writes. If you want to assert your humor by sharing crude & adult jokes - please post them in that section. Our adult sections are available only to registered members 18 years of age or older and/or by invitation.

The "Golden Rule" of online writing communities: Take the time to reply to the posts of your fellow board members. As in any give-and-take relationship - You get back what you put into it... Take the time to show love for others' writing works!

**NOTE** Little one word replies to a writers work are DISCOURAGED! The author put time into creating & posting their piece. Likewise, one should take the time to leave more than the rather insulting one, two or three-word response. We are writers right? We can string together two or three or four cohesive sentences in the spirit of sharing the poetic love for your fellow board members right? Perhaps 5 sentences if we are feeling particularly generous or have perhaps been moved by a brilliant piece. I think yes! CLICK HERE to see an example of "appropriate" feedback...

The JPiC Stance On Censorship

There are many within the writing world that have very defined opinions on the issue of censorship. From the mild warning of age-appropriateness (ie. the G, PG, PG-13, R & NC-17 rated film), to those who'd like shutdown a novel's debut. Some would seek to put all "provocatively clad" ladies out of mainstream view as well. Etcetera. Etcetera...

JPiC Forum has taken an extremely liberal approach to the censorship issue: THERE IS NONE. Well. There is very very little of it at anyrate.

The JPiC Administrator has decided to make this a non-censorship community. As with laws of any land, there may be the rare exception made. So with this in mind - Let's just go over some ground rules that will let us keep our exceptions down to the bare minimum:

Hateful speech and flaming of Community members will not be tolerated.

Harrassment of any kind is neither wanted here, nor is it acceptible. Member-on-member harrassment is subject to immediate banning.

The maxim "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." is the type of environment we've created here at JPiC Forum. This most golden of rules is particularly important!

Now as far as writing works are concerned:
Unnecessarily violent, objectionable, pornographic, racist, homophobic and/or hateful in anyway is not acceptible. Use common sense.

Keeping It Real Is Keeping It Write

Copyright should be grasped & appreciated and plagiarism should be simulataneously smirked at & spit upon. These are no-brainders. And truly, there's no need to say it, but we will. PLAGIARISM IS NOT GOOD. It is grounds for immediate, permanent ban here at JPiC Forum.

This informational will show you two ways to formally protect your work. The first (Poor Man's Copyright) is rather simple, informal method that works! The second costs about $30 with the possibility of additional fees, but will offer you 100% assurance that your work is protected:

Poor Man's Copyright

Print a legible copy of your work, or write it clearly on a piece of paper.

Put it in a sealed package & mail it to yourself. The postmark on the package will date it.

Do not open it!

Place it in a safe deposit box or similar place.

Now if there ever is ever any dispute about the authenticity of ownership, you can take it into court unopened for examination. If there is no sign of tampering on it, you will have a good case. Wonderfully, this poor man's copyright method will have only cost you the price of postage!

Official Copyright

Digitally registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office costs about $35 US Dollars and takes around four or five months for your certificate to arrive via US Mail. You can pay them $325/hr for expedited service but that is rarely worthwhile for our purposes. Click Here for a comprehensive list of copyright options and fees.

How We Handle Copyright Disputes

Generally each written work posted on JPiC Forum can be commented on, and a comment pointing out that a work is used without permission or unlawfully often is all it takes to shame the posting person into taking it down.

If this is not the case, you have made attempts to contact the offending party, and not had any satisfactory response within a week's time we may get involved. Our criteria for removing a work on this grounds will be based on the following in order of importance:

Officially registered copyright

Verifiable written proof (i.e. Poor Man's Copyright)

Work's original creation date timestamp in our database

On satisfying the standard of proof, any work proven to be plagiarized or having been posted here without the permission of the original poet, writer or artist will be removed immediately. Other disciplinary action may be taken against the offending member at our discretion.

Remember that the primary goal here at JPiC Forum is to give and receive quality feedback on each others writing in our effort to better our craft. So in this vein: Keep it creative. Keep it riveting. Keep it originally yours!

What Do We Think of Linking?

It had actually become a bit of a task for the JPiC Moderating Team to keep the more blatant external linking out of the forums. Of course by "blatant external linking" we mean SPAM. Ew.

So in an effort to keep our Forum clear of SPAM, we've developed this following policy that covers the posting of external links. The purpose of this policy is to provide a code of conduct which is both benefial and productive for our Members and the JPiC Community as a whole:

Spamming and trolling is not allowed.

This includes using the forum email and Private Message system to spam other members. **NOTE** A general rule of thumb is if the link has nothing to do with your post,- then it most likely should not be posted.

Spamming personal website links are prohibited.

Posting your unsolicited personal website links in your posts & threads, the JPiC Shoutbox and/or other areas may be considered SPAM and are subject to being deleted. If you have a personal website you seek to promote - You may place the link in your Forum Signature* or Edit Your Details to include your link. We especially encourage you to place your website links in the JPiC Link Directory.

If your sole purpose here is to register your FREE JPiC account only to post information about your or someone else's website/internet venture or advertise really inexpensive nokia cellphones or show us links to the best internet pornography or tell us about the cheapest Nike footwear in town or show any of the other umpteen SPAM directives we've seen on various internet spots, then you are most definitely in the wrong place! Your post(s) and/or thread(s) will be deleted and you will be banned forthright from JPiC Forum.

JPiC Forum is a part of the larger online internet writing community, and as such - we do allow linking to other poetry venues. We've the Miscellaneous Melange section which is specifically devoted to writing channels other than JPiC Forum. Feel free to post writing contests, calls for submissons, and other literature-specific content in the various Miscellaneous Melange sub-forums.

Please keep in mind that the JPiC Moderating Team reserves the right to refuse the posting of any links at any time. When such a link is edited or deleted out of a post/thread, the JPiC Moderating Team may issue infractions or warnings to members who've violated this policy. A total of 5 infraction points will result in an immediate banning. Removal of the ban will be at the sole discretion of the JPiC Forum Administrator.

* While these guidelines cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.

* Forum signatures may be used after 14 days of registration. Members of the JPiC Premium VIP & JPiC Contributors usergroups are exempt from this 14-day signature delay policy. More information on upgrading to JPiC Premium VIP and/or contributing to JPiC Forum may be found on the Account Upgrades page.

You are responsible for reviewing the JPiC Forum Posting Policy. We reserve the right to modify these posting policies at any time. Your continued use of JPiC Forum For Writers constitutes your agreement to accept these terms of service and acceptance of any future changes to these terms of service.

We reserve the right to ban anyone who willfully violates the JPiC Posting Policy, as access to our forum is a privilege and not a right.